Post navigation

Have you ever heard of a Vacuum Cleaner CD? Does your baby cry continuously? You wouldn’t know it now, but mine did, for up to 3 hours a day?

Like you, I am also a mother, and I have a beautiful baby girl,my first.I am not going to dwell on details of the birth, but I was happy that she arrived on time, and apart from the normal challenges of a delivery everything went pretty much the way that my Doctor and Midwife expected. After a few restful days in hospital, “getting to know each other”, (which really means me starting to understand the reality of dealing with a new born child for the first time), it was time for us to go home.

My husband collected us (I almost said me-oops, no more) at the appointed time, transporting US to our car with the unnecessary aid of the Hospital wheelchair. Julia, (that’s my daughters name), was carefully inserted into the newly fitted baby capsule for the first time, and John (the Husband/Father),very carefully guided our car through the maze of streets and highways that comprised our 22 mile drive home.

During my (oops-Our) stay in hospital, John had put the finishing touches to the nursery, completely spring cleaned our house and done the gardens, so that I had little to concern myself with when we got home. He had also arranged two weeks vacation time for us to be together with our new baby

John and I had moved out of state some 3 years earlier for career advancement, so apart from a few casual friends and work associates we were pretty much our own little island of humanity, a situation that has suited us just fine. However, it also means that I am coming home with a new baby,(a first time Mom, with a First time Dad), and in reality the only practical support available to us was the phone number of a maternity help line they gave us at the hospital.

John knew I would be tired, nervous and preoccupied with Julia, and figured that if he wanted to eat anything decent these next few weeks he would have to take care of that too. So through an act of sheer selflessness (yeah right!) he had arranged for two weeks worth of meals to be prepared by a catering service, delivered and stored in our freezer, so my food preparation duties would be so much easier.

We soon settled into a relatively calm, if somewhat uneasy routine of broken nights, frequent feeds, diaper changes, defrosted TV dinners and not much else. Time passed quickly, with both John and I fascinated with the little things Julia did (or we imagined she did), and before we knew it vacation time was up, and John had to return to what was a high pressure job.

Julia and I adapted, and apart from missing the companionship, and the adult conversation during the day, nothing much changed, until the 5th day, a Friday naturally enough.

After what was now almost three full weeks of domestic “focus”, we had agreed that John would go for Friday night drinks with the guys, their chance to “wet the babies head” if you will, and he would stay the night in the city before returning home on Saturday morning.

No problem , until 3.15 when Julia let out a sustained howl, and did not stop for almost 3 hours.

Nothing I did made any difference, I changed her, tried to feed her, rocked her in her crib, and in my arms. The constant, gut wrenching howling continued. Few things in my life have been so stressful. I could not get through to John so I called the help line which mercifully had an after hours nurse on duty.

I had no need to explain the problem, she could hear it, and calmly asked me ” how old is your baby?. When I answered that she was 3 weeks old today, she calmly told me that Julia simply had colic. She quickly explained to me that it was not my fault, that there are no known causes, and no known cures. Being helpful she explained that this would likely go on for 3 or more days each week, would slowly get worse for 6 to 8 weeks, but the good news (there is always good news), is that by about 12 weeks Julia would be past it and it will all be over. Great

John came home Saturday, and we struggle through the first few days of this, me getting even less done than usual as I was frequently trying to soothe a screaming infant.

As the first full week came to an end, I realized that I had done virtually nothing around the place, and it showed.

I had been ignoring the steadily growing layer of dust on our hardwood floor, but when I knocked over a can of baby powder, there really was nothing for it.

I put Julia down and reached for my specially purchased canister vacuum.As I set about hurriedly cleaning up the mess, something totally unexpected happened.

Instead of being frightened by this new noise, for the first time in over two hours, Julia STOPPED screaming, and seemed calm. I continued to vacuum our living areas, accompanied by blissful silence. But, to my amazement as soon as I turned off the vacuum she started up again.

Desperate for continued relief I powered up the Vacuum cleaner again, and amazingly she stopped crying again. It seems that the white noise or the “sshhh” sound of my canister vacuum cleaner was soothing my baby. When the next attack came, I trotted out the vacuum cleaner again, to hell with the fact that it was chewing up electricity for hours at a time, but unfortunately the continual use burned out the motor of the best hardwood floor vacuum that I have ever owned.

My Vacuum Cleaner CD angel

Little did I know that I could have purchased a Vacuum Cleaner CD for Colic (60 mins), and Julia could relax to the white sound without killing my Vacuum

I only found out when I told my sad tale to the sales lady at my electrical store. She had been through it all herself, so as I purchased an even later model of “the best vacuum for hardwood floors that I have ever owned”, she also directed me to where I could buy this life saving CD

Now, with the help of my trusty laptop computer I play it in the car, our bedroom, the nursery, anywhere, just as soon as Julia starts to scream, the transformation is instant, how good is that?

Now, Julia can relax while I do the household chores, or sleep quietly with the white noise of Vacuum Cleaner CD playing, quietly in the background.

I have since learned that there are also other types of CDs that could have worked, including recordings of Rain, Waves or a Fan.